Mcclain Can Get New Driver`s License--at Least Temporarily

March 05, 1986|By Dave Schneidman.

Clarence McClain, the former mayoral aide who hasn`t had a valid driver`s license for nearly two years, can get one if he applies, pays a $15 reinstatement fee and passes the necessary tests, state officials said Tuesday.

There`s one problem: If McClain gets a new driver`s license, he likely would have it for only a few weeks before it was suspended for three months because of his arrest Monday on drunken driving charges.

Under state law, driver`s licenses are automaticlly suspended within 45 days of an arrest for drunken driving. State officials said the law applies even in cases such as McClain`s, where the motorist was arrested while driving without a license.

After McClain`s arrest early Monday, it was disclosed that he hasn`t had a driver`s license in force since June 13, 1984.

But members of the Illinois secretary of state`s staff said they were mistaken Monday when they said there was a stop order preventing McClain from renewing his license until he paid several parking tickets.

They said there had been a stop order at one time, but it was lifted after the parking tickets were either paid or dismissed.

McClain, a onetime member of Mayor Harold Washington`s inner circle, is under federal investigation for his role in helping a New York collection agency, Systematic Recovery Services Inc., in its effort to win Chicago contracts for collecting overdue parking tickets and water bills.

State driver`s license records show that on Oct. 6, 1983, McClain`s license had been suspended and a stop order was issued against restoring it because he had accumulated ``10 or more`` unpaid parking tickets in 1981.

The secretary of state`s office said the stop order was placed at the request of Morgan Finley, clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court whose office then handled the collection of parking ticket fines. The federal investigation involving McClain centers on the city`s moves to increase revenues by hiring a private firm to do the collecting.

The secretary of state`s office said that on Oct. 14, 1983, the court clerk`s office sent word that McClain`s tickets had been ``rectified`` and the stop order was lifted. The suspension remained in force, however, because McClain never paid the $15 license reinstatement fee necessary to have the suspension lifted, according to secretary of state`s records.

As a result, the supsension remained in force until June 13, 1984, when the license expired.

Officials said that to get a new license, McClain would have to pay the $15 fee and then pass an eye test, written test and driving test just like a beginning driver.

At the court clerk`s office in Chicago`s Traffic Court, Finley`s staff said they have no record of the 1983 stop order being placed on McClain`s license.

But they said their records do show that in 1982, McClain had accumulated 17 parking tickets, which were listed as paid in full on March 19, 1984.